Negotiators with the European Parliament and 27 EU member states have reached an agreement on new legislation governing technology giants such as Google, Amazon and Facebook, according to DPA.
The agreement marks “the beginning of a new era for the regulation of the technology sector around the world,” said MEP Andreas Schwab, a representative of the European Parliament in the talks.
“The Digital Markets Act (DMA) will put an end to the growing dominance of large technology companies,” he said in a statement.
The new legislation focuses mainly on the risks of market distortions and focuses on large digital players to prevent them from abusing their market dominance. This is the first major attempt to regulate EU digital services in 20 years, according to DPA.
The legislation covers platforms such as Internet search engines or social networks with at least 45 million monthly active users, a market capitalization of € 75 billion ($ 83 billion) and an annual turnover of € 7.5 billion. Among its provisions is a ban on large technology companies giving preference to their own products and services over competitors’ products and services.
Users should be able to uninstall installed programs and be able to use digital services without agreeing to have their data transferred to large technology and other companies.
Legislation must now be adopted by the EP and the Member States before it enters into force.